by Jim Dwyer
The story he laid out, in six thousand words, was primarily his indictment of Max: failed pitches, missed opportunities, the unilateral decision on hiring Sarah. It was tough and true, but not true enough. All four of the Diaspora guys were shareholders in that history, due to either their inattention, indifference, disinclination to mind the nitty-gritty details of being a CEO, failure to have the slightest idea of what they were supposed to do as board members, or, if Max was correct, their mutual decision to turn down the financial support of Kleiner Perkins. (Max’s version of the history on that point was not shared by the other three.)
But their ages ran from nineteen to twenty-two. And that youthfulness was not only tied to the mistakes they had made collectively or individually, it was also their treasure. They were the ones who heard Eben Moglen’s challenge, who asked themselves, since we do need something better, why shouldn’t we build it? They had inspired six thousand people to send them money, and more than one hundred software engineers to contribute code, and Yosem, with his Rolodex of powerful people, to devote the better part of eighteen months to working for them for free.
“What has been accomplished with these resources over nearly two years?” Yosem asked. “Is there a business? No. Have we secured new financing? No. Have we built a great product? Absolutely. But as they say, cool products don’t pay the bills.”
Diaspora had not found a way to sustain itself. To do so, he argued, it needed leadership that the four of them could not provide, a CEO who had a clue about the business world. “I have recommended that you either appoint me to the position, or if you prefer, I will leave, and you can get someone else with the experience to fill it,” Yosem wrote.
The stakes were high.
“Think of the hundreds of thousands of people who have placed all their hopes and dreams in your hands to change the social web for them, and how they would feel if our wrong decisions were to determine their fates adversely,” he said. “This is not an issue to take lightly.”
It would be Tuesday when they woke to Yosem’s message. They realized there would be no meeting on the leadership that day, either. Peter Schurman was getting another fund-raising e-mail message out the door to the public.
“If we are able to get $40,000 per month from this message, as Peter and I hope will happen, we will at least buy some extra time to build the business. But time is running short. We have roughly $20,000 in the bank,” Yosem wrote to them.
—
With the leadership sword fight flashing, Schurman was preparing their largest pitch. For the first time, he was not subjected to the herd-editing techniques that attended his first two informational e-mails, which had not explicitly sought money. Nor had they generated any.
Now Schurman spotted an opportunity in their slow-poke approach to growing the number of users.
Nearly a year earlier, when the founders had launched their private alpha version, all the original contributors had been sent invitations to JoinDiaspora.org, or were supposed to have been, but that was fewer than 7,000. Another 500,000 people who expressed interest, even without contributing, were put on the waiting list.
Of course, it was possible for anyone to download the software and set up a pod on any server, or to join others who were being set up around the world, especially in privacy-conscious pockets of Europe and Latin America. It was no surprise that most people had not attempted to run their own; it was complicated for the nongeekish, who didn’t mind having someone else handle their data, just as long as it wasn’t Facebook. So they awaited their invitation from the JoinDiaspora mothership.
To Schurman, this was an obvious group to tap: they were interested but did not have an invite. He had inquired casually around the office if he could get some invites. Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, he was told. No one paid any attention or asked why. Besides, the guys were passing out invites all the time, and Yosem was especially prolific at using them to placate irritated members of the public—digital grease.
Schurman’s fund-raising pitch was a classic—filled with flattery, coaxing, and promises.
It began: “Dear Friend of Diaspora*—
“We love you. Yes. Really, we do.
“We’re building Diaspora*, in a spirit of community, because we believe in you. You’re one of the innovators, the creative ones, the people who make the world awesome.
“We’re building tools that we hope will help you bring your true voice to the world.”
Then the letter turned to the delays in expanding the site. The letter thanked the readers for being “incredibly patient” while waiting for an invitation, and said that Diaspora needed money to build faster.
And then, the payoff: “Also, if you can give any amount at all, we’ll be sure to get you an invitation to join us at joindiaspora.com right away. (Just to be clear, you’ll still get your invitation regardless. But if you make a gift, we’ll get it to you now, so you won’t have to wait any longer.)”
As with every public move they made, the headlines were quick, and in some cases, merciless: DIASPORA GETS DESPERATE, ASKS FOR FURTHER COMMUNITY DONATIONS.
One tech blogger said it was “totally absurd” that the guys had paid themselves what amounted to twenty-eight thousand dollars in salary and housing allowances for the previous year. Others thought it was entirely reasonable in a place like San Francisco.
But asking for the money wasn’t the problem.
The problem was the promise of an instant entrée for people who gave money. (“We’ll be sure to get you an invitation to join us . . . right away.”) As it happened, some of the people on the waiting list had already contributed, but somehow never got an invite. Now it looked like they were being hit up again for money. The hooting and hissing grew online.
—
A few minutes before noon Wednesday, Dan leaned over to Yosem, who was sitting alongside him in the Pivotal offices. Across the table from Dan was Ilya. At another table, sitting with his headphones on, was Max.
“It’s happening,” Dan said.
Yosem stood and walked over to a coffee table near the Ping-Pong court, followed by Dan, Ilya, and Max.
They sat.
“The three of us have talked,” Dan said. “We’ve agreed to make you the CEO of Diaspora.”
His compensation, as Yosem understood it, was to be 3 percent equity, and, once they had gotten financing, compensation equivalent to what the three guys were getting. Dan’s manner, usually so casual and laid-back, was strictly business.
“I accept your offer,” Yosem said. He noted that he would serve at the pleasure of the board, and that given the uncertain state of his health, he was not likely to be the CEO for a long time. After they had secured financing, they could hire a CEO who had led a series of start-ups—what was known in Silicon Valley as a serial entrepreneur, a person identified less for the products created than for holding a leadership position in companies that were launching.
Ilya seemed delighted that they had turned to Yosem and that the conflict had eased.
Then Max spoke.
“We all talked about it and voted for you,” he said. “We wouldn’t have let just anyone do it. We feel like you’re one of us.”
Later, in a phone conversation, Dan told Yosem that he had been surprised Max had gone along with the change.
Fed up with complaints about his communication skills—Max felt the others simply hadn’t been listening when he told them things—Max joined the vote. “I’m a team player, whatever you guys decide,” he’d said. But he did have a caveat: Yosem should only be an interim CEO, until they could hire someone with heftier credentials.
In the end, Dan said, Max seemed relieved.
“He told me he didn’t like being CEO anyway, and this would let him focus on product development,” Dan said.
Afterward, when Max offered to get in touch with their start-up lawyer to make the chan
ges, Dan was glad to let him handle the details. He had not enjoyed being so hard on his friend.
—
First thing Thursday morning, Max checked on their PayPal account, where donors would send contributions. For a moment, all seemed right with the world. Peter’s first direct solicitation had gone out on Wednesday, and by eight A.M. the next day, they had received twenty-eight thousand dollars. Plus, it seemed that the pace of giving had gone up overnight.
“It’s working!” Max announced in his early morning e-mail to the group.
“Awesome news!:)” Yosem replied.
Casey Grippi, handling their finances, was glad to hear it, too. They needed to put some money into their bank account to pay bills. He logged in to the PayPal account and transferred the bulk of the donations, something close to thirty thousand dollars, to a bank account that had been the repository of their original Kickstarter donations.
But then, some would-be donors sent notes to Yosem, saying that PayPal was rejecting contributions. Max assured the group that the money was still flowing in, though they had gotten inquiries about a few of the transactions, which PayPal seemed to think were fraudulent. At least the spray of donations had managed to interrupt the conversation about who was in charge. For a few hours, anyway.
—
The next morning, which was Friday, Yosem sent an urgent e-mail. The wording in Peter’s message had made it look like they were selling invitations. “We’re now in a public relations crisis. Over night, articles and blog entries have appeared all around the world criticizing Diaspora for the perceived ‘pay to play’ situation. We’re also now getting emails from the reporters asking to see whether we have any comments about the negative backlash.”
In theory, at least, Yosem had been designated the CEO on Wednesday. By Friday, it was evident that he would not be able to carry out the duties without strife. The question of apologizing became a proxy in the struggle between Max, who was not so quick to cede authority, and Yosem, who wanted to quickly end the invitation controversy.
“I don’t agree with this and I don’t think we should have such a knee-jerk reaction,” Max said. Once everyone got an invitation, things would be okay.
Yosem was insistent.
“Let’s not make the classic politician mistake of remaining silent or not saying anything until it becomes a terrible news story,” he argued. “We don’t have the luxury of losing our 500,000 wait-list members and alienating their friends and supporters.”
He listed a series of actions that they needed to take—blogs, e-mails, invitations. “As President and CEO, I will inform Peter that I’ve decided that his role will remain the same, but that from now on, we will write our own messages,” he wrote.
He said a board decision would not be needed to make the apology, but invited them to vote yay or nay on his propositions. “I strongly feel this could break Diaspora as a startup,” he said.
Then he drafted an apologetic post, explaining that they had not intended any such favoritism for people with money. He also wrote a Q&A section.
“I’m poor, and I can’t donate any money. What can I do to help Diaspora?”
“That’s okay, we’re poor, too,” was the draft answer. It noted that they had started the project as students, that Ilya had dropped out to work on the project, and that Casey Grippi and Yosem were getting no salary.
Ilya didn’t like the language. “It’s clearly not the case (and doesn’t really answer the question),” he wrote late that night. “We are lucky enough to be currently from upper middle class families and to be able to afford to attend an expensive institution such as NYU and have our families’ support.”
Max wrote the digital shorthand for approval—“+1 Ilya”—and added, “To call a rose a rose, none of the founders are upper middle class. To put it bluntly, we all come from ‘the 1%.’ (That doesn’t mean we are not sympathetic and aware.)”
A version of the apology, with thanks, was worked out. Yosem posted to the Diaspora blog, and e-mailed to people who had complained. He got dozens of e-mails from people who had been glad to get his explanation.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Ilya reported Saturday morning that the money was continuing to roll in, and that the PayPal account now held $41,513.28.
“The issue is well on its way to being controlled, and hopefully, fixed,” Yosem wrote.
Max, who had been opposed to the measures taken by Yosem, was openly skeptical. Citing analytics that tracked how often a page was clicked, Max wrote that fewer than two hundred people had viewed the blog post. Still, the others in the conversation were glad to put a few points on the board, and Yosem noted that there had been genuine dismay among their fans at the fund-raising pitch.
“This person captured it most succinctly: ‘Every time you guys send me an email, my heart starts jumping, hoping that it will finally be my invitation. In your last message, I excitedly opened it to finally see Diaspora. Instead, you wrote asking for more money.’”
Beyond the squabbling, the coding work had been energized by the need to spiff things up before the launch deadline. They started adding cosmetic features that were reasonably simple changes but made it friendlier: When people created a new profile, they’d be asked “What are you into?” with a series of hashtag prompts for areas of interest. A default first post would be available, introducing new users, a way for others to flag them down and issue a welcome. They’d also find a link to invite others to join the network.
After months of spinning their wheels, Dan thought, the deadline was making them think how Diaspora would really work for people encountering it for the first time. He was charged up.
One new feature took on the major hurdle for Diaspora—the lack of familiar names or friends. At Peter Schurman’s suggestion, they added a news stream that carried items not from specific friends or acquaintances—which is how things were set up on Facebook—but items keyed to shared interests. It was nicknamed “soup,” and everyone who had tried it, Dan reported, loved it
“Peter—major props,” Dan wrote. “I personally cannot wait to invite all these people. They’re going to be welcomed with some really kick-ass stuff.”
Yosem agreed.
“The next month or so will be a heck of a ride,” he wrote.
Positive as these exchanges were, there could be no mistaking that Max was in one camp, Dan and Yosem in another. Ilya was hoping to make his way back to no-man’s-land. For the most part, he stayed out of the e-mail fray. He hated conflict and preferred ambassadorial functions, shuttling between feuding parties, and trying to keep from choosing sides. There was no easy way around this one.
In any case, that Saturday night, he would be observing his twenty-second birthday. The theme of the party, he had announced in an e-mail, was “FuckYeahCarlSegen,” misspelling the astronomer’s name. Dan tweeted the news that he would be the DJ:
busting out the gear. dj set tonight @ IIlya Zhitomirskiys #electrofunhouse
Elizabeth Stark arrived at the Hive with a piece of key lime pie and a candle as the birthday cake proxy, and also in honor of a memorable outing they’d had a few months earlier. She, Ilya, and another friend had gone to Cafe Gratitude in the Mission, an über-Californian restaurant devoted to raw and vegan foods. They all had key lime pie and Ilya liked it so much that he could not get it out of his mind. Much later that night, after they’d left the restaurant, the taste of it lingered. He persuaded Stark and the other friend to go back to the café. It was closing for the night. Done. Ilya had to have a piece of key lime pie. He cajoled a waitress who was still there, until, finally, she said: “I’ll make you a deal you can’t refuse. You give me ten dollars, and I’ll give you the whole pie.”
Ilya had bragged for days about this coup, and Stark knew how happy he’d be to have a piece on his birthday.
For many of the guests, what was most memorable about th
e evening was not its theme but Ilya’s condition. Yosem was shocked by his level of intoxication.
A few days earlier, an NYU friend, Aditi Rajaram, had texted him for his birthday. She had recently moved to California to work for Google. He immediately, enthusiastically, asked her to join the party. At school, Aditi had been inseparable from Max, Rafi, Dan, and Ilya. When their Kickstarter campaign had launched, she was one of the people who got automatic notifications; she also had the password to the group’s Dropbox, a cloud storage account. Their departure had been hard for her.
She felt particularly close to Max, and had sat next to him at his graduation party in the Tribeca loft, watching the tide of donations roll across the screen. Once they moved to San Francisco, she found herself cut off from him, as she was still at NYU, with senior year ahead. To the regret of both, he was often too absorbed with work to answer her e-mails or texts. He and Ilya had been her informal tutors on matters of technology. Their patience had been a gift; she was a liberal arts major. Ilya had a knack for cracking open the shells around what seemed like hard concepts.
One day he found her leaning over books, trying to get her mind around the concepts of encryption. Ilya explained to her that it worked like a lock and key, with the keys handed only to those allowed in.
After the movie Inception came out, Ilya spoke with her about lucid dreaming—a belief that people can, at some conscious level, exercise control of their dreams, permitting themselves, for instance, to fly. During a romantic interlude in their friendship, they hatched a plan to do the lucid dreaming together, but never got around to it. She missed all of them. When Ilya had fallen into depression a year earlier, around Thanksgiving 2010, she was startled by the darkness of his emotional hues. They stayed in touch by phone.
That fall, she had moved to San Francisco, but her new job and their long hours formed a moat between them. Over time, she, too, had heard accounts from each of the four about the dynamics of the project. Life had gotten infinitely more complicated than it had been back on Mercer Street in Greenwich Village. Each one had stories so different that it brought to mind for her The Great Gatsby, which was often taught as a prime example of an unreliable narrator. She thought Rafi had the clearest, most grounded vision of what was going on. Still, she was very happy to be invited to Ilya’s party; to reconnect with people who had meant so much to her.